Roberto Chabet’s “Works on Paper”

What to do with a good head on some shoulders? The face you are now seeing is that of Lauren Hutton (shot by Irivng Penn in 1960) and is the “base” for Roberto Chabet’s Head Series, on display at Galleria Duemila currently. Works on Paper is comprised of several pieces from the Head Series spanning from 1986 to 1992.

The writeup that accompanies the exhibit was written by Ma. Victoria Herrera, who was my professor for “Narratives in Western Art” back in Ateneo. I thought it was an interesting piece, since she chronicles the history and progression of Chabet’s work, noting influences by Kurt Schwitters (who was referenced in one of pieces in this series). She also goes into the workings of collage-making, in an effort to understand the appeal of the process and the medium, as well as to provide its historical background.

A different and condensed version is up here, but I’ll try to scan the printed writeup soon because I loved reading it a lot. Nothing like a well-researched piece, really!

Anyway, onto the show! Works on Paper features over thirty works. It’s really cool to me, because it reminded me of the iteration exercises we used to have for design. By setting a limit or a boundary (in this case, that photo of Lauren Hutton), the artist is tasked to rework it several times. It’s kind of like trying to solve a problem using more than one solution, or looking for more than one way to draw a line. Or something.

For one project we had that dealt with iteration—it was aptly called “8×8″—we were tasked to make eight designs (that fell under a theme; e.g. mine was “animals”) and find eight ways to apply them on apparel/merchandise. It was fun because you really had to think outside the box and, usually, when you’re at your wit’s end, that’s when you come up with the best solutions and results.

Here are some of my favorite pieces. My camera setting was absolutely wrong for their lighting set-up, so I only have a few photos. You can view the exhibit over here, anyway. Or you know, go visit the gallery!